


Who We Are

by Hectopascal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:38:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2846387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hectopascal/pseuds/Hectopascal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mirror Verse from TSS. </p><p>Wizards think Muggles are savages. Muggleborns think Wizards are weak. </p><p>They both kind of have a point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who We Are

 

 

_It’s who we are,_

_Doesn’t matter if we’ve gone too far,_

_Doesn’t matter if it’s all okay,_

_Doesn’t matter if it’s not our day,_

~ Who We Are, Imagine Dragons

 

 

Harry Potter was ten when he killed his family. It was his early birthday present to himself.

He’d made dinner as per usual and hadn’t eaten any, also as per usual. The end of July was inching nearer, and the Dursleys were seldom in the best mood during the days leading up to it. The only thing unusual about the evening in question actually was the sleeping pills he laced the beef stew with.

He’d taken them from Aunt Petunia’s medicine cabinet earlier that day. The pills were, judging by the explicit warning label, heavy duty and meant to be handled responsibly. 

Harry supposed they would have to be strong for Aunt Petunia to sleep comfortably right next to Uncle Vernon when Harry could occasionally hear his snoring all the way from his cupboard.

He carefully twisted off the child-proof cap and set it on the counter beside the stove. He shook two large, spherical white pills into his hand—they looked even more gargantuan against the dwarfish backdrop of his palm—and then, with a theatrical air, dropped them into the simmering pot of stew with a happy little double plop.

Harry stirred supper with a wooden spoon, chasing invisible pellets around the bottom of the pot until they dissolved. He was a little surprised at how fast they shrunk and broke apart. It was less than a minute until the only trace of their presence were tiny floating flecks of clinical white atop the turbulent sea of broth.

He held the prescription bottle over the pot and started tapping it gently to slowly shift the weight of many, many nights of unused medication. He wanted the pills to go in, yes, but not fast enough that he’d lose count of how many. Keeping track seemed important for reasons that weren’t entirely clear even to Harry himself.

One pill slid over the edge and fell with another satisfying plop into the stew. It was followed swiftly by another two, hitting the surface at almost the same time. The backsplash leaped high and scalded Harry’s wrist. He hissed in discomfort, but otherwise didn’t move.

Five, he mouthed, six-seven-eight, nine, te– twelve, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty, twenty...five, twenty seven, thirty.

Forty eight was the final tally. Something about the number made him feel good. Very large, almost fifty, which would have been perfect, but close enough.

Harry leaned the spoon against the pot’s rim while he re-capped the bottle and properly disposed of it in the blue recycling bin under the sink. With a strange delicacy, he took the spoon up again and began to stir, clockwise and smooth.

The tip dragged a bit against the mush on the bottom, but that wasn’t a big concern. Harry simply turned the heat up a notch, bringing the whole pot to a fast boil. He stirred faster, stopped abruptly, and then stirred counterclockwise against the resistance.

When he brought the stew back down to a simmer and fished around the edges, all Harry found was evenly cooked vegetables and tender cubes of meat. The steam it gave off smelled quite appetizing. Harry’s mouth watered and his stomach rumbled in involuntary reaction. He rubbed it absentmindedly until it quit.

His aunt’s voice came from the family room, where she and Uncle Vernon were clustered around the telly watching the five o’clock news, as was their pre-supper habit. “Boy, is dinner ready yet?”

“Almost, Aunt Petunia,” Harry called back.

“You will not raise your voice to us while you live under my roof!” Uncle Vernon shouted, easily offended as ever by Harry’s lack of respect and sense of decorum.

Harry abandoned the spoon to swirl around the pot and padded out of the kitchen to the opening of the family room.

“Sorry, Uncle Vernon. Sorry, Aunt Petunia,” he said, quieter.

Uncle Vernon grunted, Aunt Petunia sniffed, and Harry retreated back to his station.

The table had been set. Most of the cooking dishes were already washed and put away. Harry gave the whole room a once over. It was good to be cautious of error. Uncle Vernon loathed it, which meant Harry hurt for it, which meant he was motivated to be as close to perfect as he could get.

He tugged one of the napkins a tad straighter and absently shifted a gleaming spoon by a few degrees until it was parallel to the butter knife beside it. Better. He fussed with the cutlery for a few moments more—just had to turn that plate this way and push that bowl there until it was exactly centered and was that centerpiece quite necessary?—until he could put it off no longer.

The centerpiece, a sprightly cutting of blossoms from Aunt Petunia’s flourishing garden, Harry ultimately decided was _not_ proper and he relocated them to a glass vase in front of the window.

He put down a thick pan holder cushion on the table so it wouldn’t be damaged by heat and then carefully transferred the very hot, very heavy, very satisfying pot of stew from the stove to the coaster. It was strategically located dead center so everyone could easily reach it without having to get up or, more likely, demanding Harry get up and bring them seconds.

The wooden stirring spoon went into the sink and Harry fetched the ladle from the drawer, sinking it in the pot and nodding his head. Right then.

“Food’s done,” he called, but softly, softly. Uncle Vernon had already reminded him once and he didn’t want to catch a smack round the head that badly. Harry so wanted for this to be a nice day, with no hitting or lecturing or banishing to the cupboard.

Though, quite truthfully, the long-winded rants felt more like punishment than a quiet couple of hours alone in the peaceful dark. He heard the sofa’s mournful creak, signaling Uncle Vernon heaving himself to his feet, and he peeked around the doorway.

“Shall I fetch Dudley?” asked Harry, already edging past his uncle’s not inconsiderable girth as the man made for the food.

“What? Oh yes, I suppose. And be quick about it. We don’t need you lazing about more than you already do; Dudders is a growing boy who needs to eat.” Uncle Vernon flapped a dismissive hand, sighing with relief when he took his seat at the head of the table and no longer had to stand on his own feet or look at his nephew.

Harry nodded, unnecessarily, and went to go tell Dudley that dinner was ready. It was always an adventure, never the fun sort, and one that Harry did not typically volunteer for. He was unsurprised that no one noticed or questioned this sudden bout of good will and helpfulness. After all, it wasn’t like anyone had ever paid attention to him in the first place.

Not that Harry was really bitter or anything. Most of the time he didn’t like attention when he got it. But perhaps just a little, now and then, wouldn’t have hurt. It might have pushed this event back a few years at least until Harry was a teenager and even more of a no good punk, according to his uncle.

He mused as he climbed the stairs, keeping his hand off the banister because Dudley had recently begun leaving sticky substances smeared on the railing for the unsuspecting to come across. What his dear cousin hasn’t realized yet was that everyone in the house knew and the only one still getting grossed out was Dudley when he forgot what he’d put and where.

 _Dear, stupid Dudley_ , Harry thought with a touch of hysterical glee. _Don’t you worry about a thing. Mummy and Daddy take such good care of you, don’t they?_

“Hey, Dudley.” He rapped on the youngest Dursley’s tightly shut door with his knuckles. “Dinner’s ready. We’re waiting on you.”

“What is it?” His cousin’s voice was muffled through the door, but clear enough that Harry could hear the whine. Last night, Harry had made baked sprouts, seasoned with pepper and garlic. Dudley hated to eat his sprouts in any form. Not that anybody made him.

“Beef stew, your favorite.” And if Harry’s voice went a pitch higher as he taunted, well, that was no one’s business but his. “C’mon, I just took it off the stove, can’t you smell it? Aren’t you hungry?”

Was it petty of him? Yes. Was it vindictive and more than a little cruel? Of course. Did he care? No. And didn’t that just beat all?

The door opened and Dudley’s face appeared in the crack, soft features screwed up in a petulant scowl.

“Is there dessert?” he demanded.

“I think there’s ice cream in the freezer,” replied Harry, who had the contents of the fridge, freezer, and pantry memorized. “Some of your chocolate fudge and that new red velvet Auntie wanted to try.”

“Mum doesn’t like it when you call her that.”

Harry stepped away from the door so Dudley wouldn’t have an excuse to elbow him as he emerged and followed his cousin back towards the stairs.

“You gonna tell her?”

“Nah. Not if you do my next maths homework for me.”

Harry considered this briefly. They headed towards the kitchen at Dudley’s maximum walking speed which was a slow stroll for Harry.

“Fine.”

“Deal. We’ll shake on it later,” Dudley muttered as they approached the table.

Harry said nothing, sliding into his chair and trying to look attentive.

“And where,” Aunt Petunia started pointedly the second Dudley was settled, glaring at Harry like he was the cause of all her woes, “are my flowers?”

Uncle Vernon served himself first before passing the ladle to Dudley. He appeared to regain some good humor at the prospect of dinner entertainment. Harry hunched in his seat, internally debating whether this was a query that required eye contact or not.

“I put them in the windowsill,” he said, staring at his empty water glass, but jerking his chin in their direction. “I thought it would be better—”

“I know I have told you before that you’re no good at thinking, boy,” Aunt Petunia cut him off briskly. “If you’ve damaged any petals with your fumbling, it’ll be no breakfast again.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” Harry was the one who had arranged the flowers in the first place on Aunt Petunia’s orders, trimmed and fluffed and fiddled with the stems until she was satisfied with their complexity and superiority to their neighbors’. He hadn’t _messed it up_. “I’m sorry, Aunt Petunia.”

She inhaled sharply through her nose, lips going pale and pinched. “I think it’d be best if you skipped dinner tonight to make sure you remember in the future. Lord knows you’re stupid enough to forget it overnight.”

Harry said nothing. He found himself doing that quite often.

“Don’t you agree, Vernon?” Aunt Petunia turned to her husband, who was already halfway through his first bowl and picking up speed as he went. Dudley was on his second, having just topped it off.

“Quite right, pet,” agreed Uncle Vernon, mustache quivering as he chewed. “Boy, what’ve you done with the toast? Go fetch it.”

The ‘toast’ Uncle Vernon was referring to was actually Harry’s homemade garlic bread, cut into slices and ideal for soup dipping.

“We’re out,” Harry said shortly, eyeing the ladle with something that could be mistaken for wistful yearning as Aunt Petunia took her first serving.

“What do you mean, we’re out?” Dudley interrupted, looking up from his bowl and finally taking a break to breathe, chew, and swallow. “We always have toast with soup.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t there when I looked,” Harry explained patiently. “So I can’t make it again until we go to the store and buy some more bread. Because we’re out.”

“Don’t talk to Dudley that way, you miserable little brat,” Uncle Vernon thundered while Aunt Petunia’s eyes narrowed to angry slits. “No breakfast or lunch tomorrow. Go to your cupboard.”

Harry looked into his reddening face with deceiving passivity. Then he lowered his gaze to his lap, and pushed away from the table. “Yes, Uncle Vernon.”

“Put the chair in,” Aunt Petunia snapped before he could do more than stand up. “I won’t have you leaving my things in disarray.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” Harry put the chair in and stepped out of the kitchen, closing the door softly behind him. But he did not go immediately to his cupboard. He went to his knees instead and pressed his ear to the keyhole, closed his eyes, and listened.

He heard: spoons scrapping against ceramic, free conversation now that he had left, liquid splishing and splashing and splooshing, Uncle Vernon’s curiously loud open-mouthed chewing, someone tapping on the table, glasses clinking as they were put down, Dudley complaining again about the lack of toast, Aunt Petunia reassuring him, all the sounds of a normal family eating dinner together.

And there was Harry, with only a partial glimpse at it through a keyhole, precious moments stolen in secret. It was a sad, pathetic reflection on his life so far and it made him smile, in a manner that was not particularly happy.

The noises of domesticity continued for some time, which Harry spent unmoving, until they slowed, silenced, and dissolved quickly into chaotic pandemonium. His smile widened into a grin. It was an unusual expression on his face and made his cheeks ache with the strain of unfamiliar muscles.

“Duddy-dear, have you been staying up late playing video games again? You look exhausted.”

“Ah, leave the boy be, Petunia. He deserves to have his fun. Why, when I was his age—”

“‘M fine, Mum. W– Really.”

“No, Vernon, look at him. I think he looks ill. Does he seem feverish to you?”

“You know, he does look a bit, erm... What is, Petunia, I don’t think— Feel funny, yer faish...”

Heavy thud.

“Dad! Dad, are you—”

“Dudley!” The name was mangled almost beyond repair by panicked hiccups. “Vernon, get up, do something!”

Another heavy thud, not quite as loud as the first. A low groan almost drowned out by Aunt Petunia shrieking, a jarring clatter as she presumably leapt to her feet, and then a final thump and a painful sounding wheeze.

The death of that final, pitiful noise warmed Harry on the inside. It was a sensation not entirely unlike pleasure and not too dissimilar to the victorious rush he experienced on the occasion when he outran his cousin, his gang, and the rather foul-tempered poodle that belonged to the man at Number 8. 

He took a deep breath, savoring it and schooling his expression into an acceptable show of neutrality, stood up and stretched, and then, then he opened the door.

The sight that greeted him was fantastic. Even as he had done it, Harry hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that it would work. It had, though, and beautifully. The scene almost didn’t look real.

Uncle Vernon was lying on his back, chair tipped over beside him, with Aunt Petunia sprawled face down over his bulging stomach. On the other side of the table, Dudley was also on the floor, looking like he had simply tipped over sideways and not moved again, his face smushed against the ground at an awkward angle.

Harry stepped over his uncle’s head and skipped across the kitchen to the window, where he pulled the curtains shut. He wasn’t sure whether the habit of spying on one’s neighbors was a uniquely Aunt Petunia trait or not, but there was no need to invite an audience to a private show either way.

Precautions done, he checked on the health of his relatives. Harry put a hand over Uncle Vernon’s mouth and concluded that the man was, unfortunately, still alive. Aunt Petunia and Dudley were too.

Harry rocked back on his heels, pondering the best way to remedy this. He retreated across the floor and put his back to a wall, still thinking and staring at the three motionless bodies. He felt a chill and rubbed his arms, the sleeves of Dudley’s old shirt riding up his elbows.

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what to do. He had rather hoped that, what, they’d just keel over slow and quiet into their bowls? And be no more. That part seemed especially very important. They needed to be _gone_ was the main issue, to someplace where Harry would never have to speak to or deal with them again, and death seemed like the ideal ticket. Or murder, whichever. Just... the removal of their presence by any means necessary.

The use of sleeping pills Harry had gotten from a movie. They had been more effective on screen. Lots of choking, some foaming at the mouth, a few tears—very showy, a little scary, but fast.

And in real life, there his relatives were, unconscious, but tenaciously and frustratingly still breathing. That had to stop. Somehow. Soon. Before they woke up and realized what Harry had tried to do to them.

The day was no longer quite as good as it had been.

Harry uncurled from his corner and fetched a pillow from the sofa in the living room. This idea he had not gotten from a film, but an offhand threat from his uncle when he’d been younger. He hoped it would work better.

It did.

Uncle Vernon didn’t twitch when Harry pressed the pillow over his face, nor when his nephew kneeled to put his body weight into the force pushing down, down, down, immovable and uncompromising. Harry held firm, arms trembling with effort, until Uncle Vernon’s shoulders started making little jerking motions.

He still didn’t wake, and Harry shook with something that was not terror when his uncle’s heels drummed against the floor and his unconscious thrashing got wilder until, eventually, the struggling weakened and Uncle Vernon was motionless once again.

Harry kept the pillow in place for a few moments more, counting the seconds trailing by in his head until enough time had passed that he felt it was safe to remove the obstruction from his uncle’s airways. 

When he drew the pillow away, slowly in case he had to put it back in the event of failure or revival, there was a damp patch of spit on the fabric. Harry made a disgusted expression at it and then gauged Uncle Vernon’s liveliness.

He didn’t particularly _look_ dead, which was worrisome. Harry held a hand over his mouth and didn’t catch any creepy moist exhales. He felt around the fat making up Uncle Vernon’s tiny neck and didn’t feel a pulse, slow, quiet or otherwise, against his fingers.

Harry waited, perhaps for some dormant familial instinct to cry out in horror and guilt, but he didn’t really feel...anything. The tiles were cold beneath his legs and he was beginning to get a mite peckish, but relative to the act he had just performed, all that came to him was surprise at how _easy_ it was.

The Dursleys might have been right all along when they called him a freak. Oh well, Harry shrugged, it wasn’t like he could be anything but what he was. And the Dursleys wouldn’t have to put up with him anymore besides, so why worry?

Harry set the throw pillow aside and maneuvered around to drag Aunt Petunia off her late-husband. For such a thin lady, she was ridiculously heavy. It took absurd effort to get her moving and even then it was only in short bursts. Harry tripped backwards onto his rear, hauling Aunt Petunia with him. At least she was half off Uncle Vernon—was it still Uncle Vernon? Should he be saying Uncle Vernon’s corpse? Ex-Uncle Vernon?—and more or less in a decent position for suffocating.

The pillow was retrieved and—hovering over her slack, horsey face, ready to take the second plunge—Harry paused.

He could try something different. His mind drifted to the knives in the cutting block just a few meters away and all he imagined that could be done with them. He recalled the texture of raw chicken and red meat, the drag and heavy chop through muscle and fat and bone. He wondered, briefly, if a person would cut any different.

Harry’s grip tightened and he shook his head, ignoring the insidious whisper, _but when would he get another chance?_ This was not the time to experiment with new things. Tried and true was the way to go.

He aligned the pillow over Aunt Petunia’s nose and mouth, and applied pressure. Maybe it was luck or just his aunt’s tendency to eat all day a volume of food that her son consumed in one sitting, but when she started to shake from oxygen deprivation, her eyes popped open.

Harry stared down at her in shock.

“Hhhmph!” Aunt Petunia made a curious sound, part fear, part fury. Her arms rose, slow and clumsy from the drug, to claw at Harry’s face.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Harry chanted, fast and panicked as he jolted into action. He leaned back to avoid pink-painted nails raking his cheeks and scrambled on top of his aunt’s struggling body.

Inevitably, the pillow lifted as he moved and the breath Aunt Petunia gasped for was so shrill, it was nearly a scream. Harry sat himself firmly on Aunt Petunia’s chest, pinning her shoulders with his knees, and shoved the pillow down hard with everything he had.

Aunt Petunia fought desperately, tried to fling him off, attempted to scratch him again, but Harry bore down with all the strength and pent up emotion in his body and refused to be budged. Like Uncle Vernon had, she started to slow down as she faded, but strangely, seemed to last longer. When she did finally go, it was instant. One second, she was batting at Harry’s arms, and the next, she went noodle-like and her hands flopped bonelessly to the floor.

The only sound in the kitchen was Harry’s harsh, uneven breathing. He slid off Aunt Petunia’s still form and backed up, clutching the pillow like a shield. His aunt’s chin was bloodied; he couldn’t tell if she had bit her lip or if her nose had broken in the struggle.

That had been— Harry was definitely shaking now with the adrenaline dumped in his system, his heart was pounding a mile a minute, he thought he might be tearing up or ready to throw up or both, but— That had been—

Terrifying. Awful. Traumatizing. He had looked his aunt dead in the eyes as the light faded from them.

 _Awesome_.

Harry didn’t need to check Aunt Petunia’s neck for a pulse. He had watched her, watched it happen, and he would never forget. No wonder so many people did this all the time. It was amazing. The rush was unreal. It was better than the time he had outrun Dudley, his gang, and the vicious dog at 8.

He hugged the pillow to his chest and just breathed through it until a semblance of calm returned. He wasn’t done yet either. 

Not sure his legs would hold him, Harry crawled around the table—over Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon because it wasn’t like they would mind—to where Dudley lay like a beached fish.

Harry readied himself, leaned forward, not noticing that he was smiling, and… stopped. His smile turned around as he reached forward to confirm with touch what his other senses were already sure of. His cousin was already dead, expired sometime before Harry had gotten to him.

The pillow was abandoned as Harry scooted back to lean against one of the table legs. He sat on the floor of the kitchen, surrounded by three bodies, killed by his own hand, incidentally, the last of his blood family. He was now totally alone in the world. Clearly, there was only one thing to do in a situation such as this.

Harry stood up and found that his legs would support him after all. In the oven, he knew, was a tray which held a tinfoil-covered bowl, a napkin, a spoon, and a plate. He retrieved it and set it on the counter while he peeled the foil off and tossed it in the bin. He added a cup to the tray’s setup and filled it three-quarters of the way with milk.

All of this he balanced as he walked into the living room, placing the tray on the coffee table while he fetched the remote and made himself comfortable in the middle of the sofa, a place he had never before been allowed to sit.

He relocated the tray to the cushion next to him and clicked the telly on, flipping through the saved channels past Uncle Vernon’s news and stocks, past Aunt Petunia’s soaps and her all-day shopping networks, past all of Dudley’s cartoons to the movie blocks Dudley frequented, which were secretly Harry’s favorite.

He set the remote aside after increasing the volume a few notches and picked up the bowl and spoon. Harry shivered when the first burst of delicious preserved warmth spilled across his tongue. He ate a chunk of potato and beef next, chewing with relish.

The sound of a cracking whip came from the speakers, followed by upbeat, familiar theme music. 

Harry took a sliver of garlic bread from the plate, dipped it in the stew, and popped it in his mouth. They hadn’t been out at all, no sir, sorry sir. He wiped his greasy fingers on the napkin and ate more stew, eyes fixed on the adventure unfurling before him.

He relaxed into the sofa with a long, happy sigh. He thought he might stay right here tonight and find out what it was like to sleep in the open, taking up as much space as he pleased, using as many blankets and pillows as he wanted. How unreal.

Forget his expectations, it had been a _great_ day.

The movie rolled on, Harry ate his fill, and was content.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment on your way out.


End file.
